


3:15 a.m.

by beetle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My first ever SPN fic. Written for someone knocking on the door at 3:15am, in prompt set 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	3:15 a.m.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: Wincest. This was written pre-, but set post-Croatoan.

There’s a knock on the door--their goddamn  _secret_  knock from when they were kids, invented for no other reason than they really had no friends, nor time to make friends.   
  
  
Had precious little besides each other.  
  
  
Dean flings caution to the wind and the door wide open. The latter so hard it hits the wall with a _crack_  and rebounds.  
  
  
Sam steps into the room wincing--limping, for fuck’s sake, past Dean with a muttered: “Lost my key.”  
  
  
He goes straight to the rickety motel fridge, no stops along the way to meet Dean’s eyes or give an explanation for the extreme lateness.   
  
  
Opens the fridge and drinks the last of the orange juice in one long swallow.  
  
  
When he’s done, he puts the empty carton back in the fridge, as-fucking-always, and that’s when Dean realizes he has to say  _something_ , because that’s the last straw, the absolute fucking  _last_.  
  
  
 _Where the hell’ve you been? You go out at two in the afternoon to do 'research', or so you said--and don’t come back till 3:15am. You don’t even answer your fucking phone or call me to let me know you’re not dead in a ditch! What the hell is your problem, Sam?_  
  
  
Dean can hear it as clearly as if he’d just yelled it, his anger booming off the thin walls, deep angry rumble that sounds just like Dad. . . .   
  
  
He can feel the pulse beat at his temples and jugular, can hear it in his ears. He’s so angry--at Sam, yeah, but mostly at himself and at their father--there’s anger in his  _blood_. He wants to grab Sam and shake him till those perfect white teeth rattle like dice. Till they both travel back to a time before either of them knew anything about  _anything_ , and still made secret knocks that no one cared enough to try and steal the secret of.  
  
  
He even, for a tiny, barely-there moment, wants to just walk away. From Sam, from hunting, from everything.  
  
  
Then Sam’s looks at him, those wide eyes a deep shade of scared-little-brother-blue and encircled by purplish hollows and the moment passes like it never was. Shallow scrapes on Sam’s face and neck are just starting to scab over and his lower lip is split, like he’s been fighting.  
  
  
He looks like shit.   
  
  
And he’s shaking, from exhaustion or fear or both. There’s a strong scent of incense and gasoline--of  _burning_  coming from his not-so-general direction.  
  
  
Sam’d been hunting.   
  
  
Hunting alone.   
  
  
There’s a white-hot flare of ragefearrelief that sharpens his vision and puts him on edge. A million recriminations spring to his lips, but what can Dean say or scream or yell--or punch, damnit, he’s not above beating some common goddamn sense into Sam’s head, wouldn’t be the first time--that Sam doesn’t already know? Hasn’t already thought, from the whipped look on his face?  
  
  
The painful knot of emotions loosens, sapping the last of Dean’s fight and energy, leaving him weary and a little lost for what he  _could_  possibly say.  
  
  
“Selfish dick. I’ve been savin’ that o.j.” The sarcasm rolls out just so, and Sam hangs his head guiltily, his too-long hair obscuring his eyes.   
  
  
Dean shuts the door Sam left open, locks it and crosses the room, stopping a few feet away from his determinedly  _not_  fidgeting brother. That miserable hang-dog face takes the wind out of Dean’s sails, but Sam stealing himself for a fight he doesn’t want but maybe thinks he deserves?   
  
  
That makes Dean want to do anything and everything he can to make Sam smile.  
  
  
(Had there ever been a time when Sam smiled constantly, simply because he was happy? When he was twelve or thirteen, maybe? Just before Dad finally allowed him to come on hunts?)  
  
  
“I just—you’ve been so distracted, lately--“ deep, tired breath like he expects Dean to start denying, or yelling. “It was a nothing hunt. An angry poltergeist that liked to fling furniture, and--I handled it. Some chanting, some holy water, some gasoline. Just figured maybe you could use the  _rest_ , is all--“  
  
  
“ _Sam_.” Dean puts out his hand to tell Sam it’s okay--at least as long as this lone-wolf bullshit doesn’t become a habit--to comfort him. But it’s not as easy as all that. Hasn’t been easy to  _just_ comfort Sam for awhile now, with so many things running unsaid between them.  
  
  
His hand lands on the warm patch of chest over Sam’s heart. A sharp breath from Sam, and Dean feels the strong, slow beat like Sam’s heart is right under his skin. Which it can’t be, not when it’s right there his bruised, haunted eyes.  
  
  
“Dean. . . .” The beat picks up just a little. Dean’s fallen asleep with that sound in his ear, woken up with it at his back. Has had the misfortune of hearing it stop completely--only to restart again nearly two frantic minutes later. Now, that heartbeat is getting closer, as Sam narrows the distance between them to several inches.  
  
  
Then to nothing at all, with a shudder of relief that echoes Dean’s.  
  
  
“Sam, you know we shouldn’t be doing . . .  _this_.” Dean can’t name it. Naming things gives them a kind of life, and whatever’s between them already has too much of that.  
  
  
But he can’t look away, let alone move away from Sam. Moments of doubt aside, he will  _never_ leave Sam.  
  
  
“ _Shouldn’t_  shouldn't matter, Dean. Not anymore,” Sam’s saying, searching Dean’s eyes for a sign, for a reason to continue . . . or a reason to stop. When Dean doesn’t give him one, Sam puts his hands, cool and still shaking on Dean’s face, cupping it and tilting it up toward his own. “Nothing matters, but this.”   
  
  
Then Sam’s kissing him, hard and desperate like they’re arguing, and he doesn’t intend to lose.   
  
  
But, Sam being Sam, the kisses even out, turn gentle and sweet, coaxing Dean into a helpless moan and response. He’s imagined kissing Sam, imagined what it would feel like to hold him just like this, imagined Sam quivering  _just like this_  from a simple kiss, that really isn’t simple at all.  
  
  
He hasn’t imagined the copper-salt taste Sam’s blood--the blood that they share--coloring the kiss, staining it a red so dark it’s almost black.  
  
  
“You’re bleeding--“ Dean murmurs, tries to murmur, but Sam’s lips and tongue get in the way, until all he can do is surrender to thing he’s been fighting against since--forever, it feels like.  
  
  
“Love you,” Sam whispers into the kisses and between them. It’s so right, and so wrong, and--a million permutations of grey in between the two. But Dean can’t stop it and doesn’t want to. Sam’s body presses against his, solid and still shaking. Damn near vibrating with nervous energy and want. “Love you, so much . . . let me show you, please?”  
  
  
“Yeah. . . .”  
  
  
Sam is backing them toward the nearest bed, untucking Dean’s shirt from his pants and smoothing his hands up and down Dean’s back.   
  
  
This wanting is a fire that jumps back and forth between them, increasing exponentially, hitting Dean repeatedly like bolt after bolt of lightning, making his knees want to buckle and lay them out on the floor so he can be taken, and claimed, and  _shown_  just how deep Sam’s feelings run.  
  
  
Dean’s wants that very much. In fact, he’s wanted for so long, now that he’s  _getting_ \--  
  
  
“Get off me--stop!” He jumps spang outta Sam’s arms, and Sam, bless his heart, is quick to close the distance between them, to pull Dean into his arms again.  
  
  
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” he promises, tears standing out in his eyes as he wills Dean to believe him. “You’re the strongest person I know, Dean, and it  _will_  be okay.”  
  
  
“We can’t do this, Sam, can’t.” Can’t  _think_  with Sam touching him, holding him, wanting him, loving him  _this_  way.   
  
  
“We can do anything,  _handle anything_  as long as we’re together. As long as you trust me. Trust _us_.” Sam tries to hold him tighter, but Dean’s still struggling--not hard, but persistently, avoiding Sam’s gaze, until finally--  
  
  
\--Sam lets go.  
  
  
Just a few inches between them, and . . . oh, Dean can’t feel that beat, the soundtrack of their lives, anymore. There are doors between his heart and Sam’s. Doors that Sam’s finally getting tired of knocking at.   
  
  
“You said knowing what I am wouldn’t change things between us. That you wouldn’t let it.” Sam’s voice is hoarse and uneven. Accusing. He’s backing away, his eyes shuttered like windows. “And you weren’t lying. Nothing’s changed between us and you won’t ever let it, will you?”   
  
  
Stymied, Dean wants to deny it with every burning, lustful, traitorous molecule within him. But he doesn’t. Just because he can’t see into Sam’s heart anymore doesn’t mean Sam can’t still see into his at will.  
  
  
As if in answer of that realization, Sam laughs ruefully, shaking his head. “I’m gonna take a shower. We should probably hit the road at dawn.”  
  
  
“Yeah, we. . . .” But Sam’s already shut the door, and Dean’s alone with the deepest, most perfect regret he will ever have. His mouth tastes like Sam’s blood and his own regrets, and all he wants to do is pound at the doors and beg to be let in.  
  
  
But he can’t because Sam, as usual, is right.  
  
  
Nothing’s changed between them.  
  
  
And Dean won’t let it.  
  



End file.
